The Road to 40 Day 60/365: Ramen, boardgames, and a cookie

Met a friend this day and had some board game fun with the kids at our regular spot in BGC.

Vino got up pretty late, so there was nothing much to do in the morning, really. I prepared breakfast so that Che can have some before she left, and the kids had it a couple of hours later.

Che was supposed to have a lunch meeting, so I planned to meet a friend for lunch. She suggested Mendokoro at Mitsukoshi since Vino was dead set on eating ramen. I planned to take the kids to the board game place in Uptown Mall, so it works out fine for today.

It was going to be a long walk if ever, so we took the car out.

Eva was coming from Quezon City, so we walked around the mall first. Vino has moved on from insisting to buy something wherever we go and is just happy now to appreciate things without buying it.

After checking out Funko characters, we went to a bookstore. Vino loves the Weird But True series, but we found this joke book from National Geographic. Sometimes, he would ask me for jokes, but I really don’t have those handy. At least now that he has a book, I don’t need to Google jokes anymore.

We went on to have lunch. When Eva and I talked about it, I realized that it wasn’t my first time, but my first was a long way back and it was the first time I ate tsukemen. So it was going to be the first time I’m going to eat ramen there at least.

When I moved to a different team in 2023, Eva joined the team to help Bong with graphics as well as provided transcriptions in the team I left. When I moved back to the team last year, I was in a more supporting role compared to my first go-around.

Anyway, we got to work together for a bit, but we were all in the same team. So the cuts at the start of the month hit us hard. While I was ready to not be working by July 1st and Eva still had an active contract, it didn’t change the fact that our team lost Bong and Kriel in our team.

We talked about how we dealt with the news and how life was going these days with all the changes.

The thing with me is that I never really had workmates that I related with. With these guys (and girl), I felt like I was part of an actual team even if we never really saw each other. We’d interact on a daily basis about work or about random inappropriate things we’d come across.

While we can still be inappropriate bastards in a new group chat, it’s a bit different now that we’re not working together.

Eva and I went our separate ways. I planned on just walking over to Uptown since it’s near, but the clouds looked like it was going to rain anytime soon, so I decided to switch parking lots.

We found this boardgame place the last time we stayed in BGC for an extended period. Vino and I played a lot of games there and it was a good way to disconnect for a bit. With Tia with us, we could play a bit more games.

The sound game was up first, it was a charades thing but only using sounds. Since we’re all used to charades, it was a bit tough shaking off the action and just sticking to sounds. Overall, the kids did pretty well. When they explained the sounds they made, they actually made sense and I was kinda disappointed I didn’t answer it.

We had Tapple next, and the Happy Salmon game next. Wasn’t much else to do after that, so drove back to the hotel where we had dinner with Che.

It was raining pretty hard, so we had Grab pickup to Sbarro at the food court nearby. It was one of my go-to pastas back then because it’s always filing. Sad that they didn’t have the Chicago Deep Dish available. It’s a favorite of mine but I can’t find anything similar in SG.

Cleaned up a bit and got the kids ready for bed. They played on their tablets more while Che worked a bit more.

I snapped at Vino a bit because he was using his cookie pillow as a shoe. I understand the need of kids to play, but I also want to instill in him the notion of taking care of things and using things as they are intended to be.

I’ve seen many younger people who have no regard for things. On the news, there were these teens who just trashed a 24-hour laundromat for fun. A decade ago, I was drinking with a good friend while his brother was hanging out with his friends, who later decided it was a good idea to stab a styrofoam ice cooler with forks.

I understand fun can be crazy at times. Heck, that good friend of mine also wanted to drive a bike into a pool – even as a professional adult.

However, it’s not something that I want Vino to feel is normal behavior. I feel like cutting it off by not indulging in his fun is a step in helping him understand that this is not normal behavior.

I can’t dictate how he thinks. Unfortunately, the things he enjoys now – the things that kids enjoy nowadays – are pretty much the same. It’s mostly the noisy, overacting streamers, content creators who talk about nonsense, and random highlight videos that make it seem everything is easy.

He’s at an age where he spends more time with friends than us at home, no matter how much time I have now to spend with him. His habits and personality will be formed by the people around him, so the best I can do is try to filter the good from the bad as much as I can.

It pains me not to have fun with him when he wants to act silly, but at the same time, he is at an age where he is understanding how “funny” works. We laughed one time when he burped loudly, and now he’s burping loudly multiple times whenever he has the chance.
Given this, I need to be careful which actions I should tolerate and which ones I should try to hold back on, otherwise it’s going to be his new normal.

Che said we shouldn’t sleep without talking it out, but I just couldn’t get myself to go into the room to talk to him because it seemed like he still didn’t understand what he did wrong. Saying “sorry” is difficult for some adults, so I want Vino to grow up knowing how to own up to his mistakes.

Not having a job right now can be a bit difficult, but knowing I’ll have more time to focus on Vino during this period is always going to be something I will forever be grateful for.

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